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Albany Med Named Center for Lung Cancer Screening Excellence

ALBANY, N.Y., MAY 30, 2013 — Albany Medical Center has been listed as a Center for Lung Cancer Screening Excellence by the Lung Cancer Alliance. Only seven facilities in New York state received such a designation.

The designation is based on Albany Med’s adherence to guidelines from the National Framework for Excellence in Lung Cancer Screening and Continuum of Care. These guidelines include using quality screening methods, employing recommended criteria for selecting high-risk individuals for screening and educating about risks and benefits, and providing evaluation and follow-up with a multi-disciplinary team of experts.

Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in the United States, taking 160,000 lives each year. Only 15 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer will survive it — primarily because the vast majority of lung cancers are diagnosed at a late stage.

“Lung cancer screening dramatically changes the stage at which we find these tumors,” said Thomas Fabian, M.D., chief of Albany Med’s Section of Thoracic Surgery and director of its Multi-Specialty Lung Cancer Program. “Instead of identifying 80 percent of lung cancer patients in advanced stage, the paradigm shifts to nearly 80 percent being early stage and surgically resectable.

“Utilizing the highest quality images, our low-dose screening CT scans minimize the effect of radiation exposure,” Dr. Fabian continued. “In addition to having these images interpreted by dedicated chest radiologists, cases of suspicious or cancerous lung nodules are then evaluated at Albany Med’s Multi-Specialty Lung Cancer Program to provide patients with multiple opinions regarding their best options for cure.”

The Lung Cancer Alliance is the leading national non-profit organization committed to reducing lung cancer’s mortality through an alliance of advocacy, education and support.

Albany Medical Center, northeastern New York’s only academic health sciences center, is one of the largest private employers in the Capital Region. It incorporates the 651-bed Albany Medical Center Hospital, which offers the widest range of medical and surgical services in the region, and the Albany Medical College, which trains the next generation of doctors, scientists and other healthcare professionals, and also includes a biomedical research enterprise and the region’s largest physicians practice with nearly 400 doctors. Albany Medical Center works with dozens of community partners to improve the region’s health and quality of life. For more information: www.amc.edu or www.facebook.com/albanymedicalcenter.

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